I may have mentioned my small obsession with Napoleon. So seeing his tomb in Les Invalides was an important sight for me. I almost with I hadn't gone. I started the day in a terrific mood. We perhaps had a slower start to the day than we should have. We stayed on the bus for the whole trip, but I was enjoying the breeze and the music, and just driving around Paris and seeing and absorbing. I was at the point where you really get a feel for the town. It was day 4, by which time a lot of people have moved on (3 days is the average time tourists spend in Paris). So I was in a good mood to start with. Then we went to the Tomb. I knew it would depress me a little. Tombs, graveyards, anything to do with the dead tends to depress me. And I liked Napoleon, so I was a little sadder. But what I didn't expect was to be angry. Maybe it was me being naive. But I expected that the tourists, who treated the rest of Paris like a theme park, would at least have a little respect for the dead. But the Tomb was almost as bad as Louvre. People posing, pulling faces, throwing things. I not generally a fan of policing behaviour. But there are some things that I expect, because they are a matter of respect. You do not talk in a church, you do not walk over graves, and you do not talk in a tomb, you do not sing in a graveyard. Respect for the dead, especially those who commanded respect is something that I find very important. I respect Napoleon a lot, and to see all those tourists treating it like just another ride at Disney world made me angry.
From to Tomb we walked across the road to the Rodin. The Garden was very pretty, but it wasn't my favourite museum. after the Rodin, we went to the Musee de l'Orangerie, home of Monet' Water Lilies. These are huge canvases set out in large, white, oval rooms. It was very peaceful to sit in there and look at the paintings. It gave you the sense of looking at water. There were very few people, as it was just before closing time. But again, there were people ignoring the rules, taking flash photography. While I enjoyed my time immensely in Europe, there were times when it brought me down a little. It makes me sad to see people acting so selfishly, and with so little respect. Anyone who has walked into a museum knows that flashes destroy paintings. Taking pictures is just selfish, damaging a painting just so you can have a copy of it, rather than buy a 50c postcard with the same image but without the damage. Some of the things I saw people do made me wonder why they bothered. Surely someone who races through the Louvre, from the Venus de Milo, to the Winged Victory, to the Mona Lisa and then leaves didn't really come to Paris for the Art. Why bother with Lisa, if you're not bothered with the rest?
In the Louvre, I saw a lot of people do that. They would follow the signs straight to the Mona Lisa and then strait back out again. But while the Mona Lisa is beautiful, it is not the only amazing art work in the Louvre. It just happens to be the most famous. Someone looking at me bucket list might accuse me of hypocrisy at this point. I will admit that the Mona Lisa is on my list. And it is there because the Mona Lisa is famous, and because seeing it means something. But that doesn't mean I wanted to see it just to cross it off my list. I wanted to see it, because I believe that something becomes famous or popular for a reason. I do not avoid something because other people like it. Nor do I like just because other people do. I wanted to see the Mona Lisa, because it was famous, and I wanted to know why.
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